Samsung N220 10.1-inch Netbook

Bobbo

at 9:38 pm

Nice little netbook. I also have the N210 and there are a few differences:

N220, 2.1 speakers, the sound is defintely better than 210 with the extra mini woofer on the bass. Doesnt sound tinny.

N220, slightly different styling to the N210, hexagon pattern on the lid and a chrome rim.

N220, dark glossy lid is a fingerprint grease magnet.

As for the N200 series, key points:

Good Keyboard

Fantastic chiclet keyboard. I love it, nice and clicky tactile response and zero flex. Feels very solid, probably the best laptop keyboard I have ever used. Feels better than the keyboard on my MacBook Pro. Only criticism I have for the UK version is the shortened right hand shift key, I end up hitting the key a lot. Good touchpad too, with multitouch.

Battery life

Not quite the 12 hours promised but from light internet surfing at 1-3 bars screen brightness it’s quite easy to manage 7-8 hours wifi on. Incredible. If you use the netbook at minimal brightness without wifi, it can easily go 9 hours or more.

Nice design

Stylish acrylic shell with textured pattern underneath, personally I prefer the white N210 as fingerprints dont show on the lid as easily.

Bloatware

On starting up the netbook for the first time it installs a ton of useless software and bloatware which takes ages. Then I have to remove it all which also takes ages. The instant on hyperspace feature is useless and is just a basic os and web browser, no skype or other programs we might use on a netbook. Booting into win7 is really quick anyway. I advise removing the bloatware McAfee antivirus, hyperspace, MS office trial and all the game demos. Also, comes with failsafe which has one of the most annoying installers and insists on popups every time you start up the PC, so you have to install it to stop these darn popups coming up. Anyway, with a bit of time and patience you can get rid of all this junk and make Win 7 lean and efficient.

Win7 Starter

Or Win7 Lite as I like to call it, a lot of people dont like it but i think it does the job fine. Don’t need DVD playback on a netbook which doesnt have a DVD drive. Can live without Aero on this. Dont need media centre either, my media pc does a better job of that. Yes the wallpaper is changeable with some free third party wallpaper changers. Otherwise, win7 lite is fast, smooth and stable. The win7 Home premium anytime upgrade is unneccesary IMHO and not worth the £50 MS are asking for it. Save your money and get RAM instead….

So, DO get a 2gb RAM upgrade, the difference is immediately noticeable. Programs load and switch faster and more smoothly. I did not enjoy using this with the standard 1GB.

Noise

Virtually silent. The fan is hard to hear even in a silent room.

Screen

Clear, very bright, very energy efficient and doesnt eat up tons of battery even on full brightness. Resolution is so so, at only 600px vertical resolution there is a lot of scrolling to do, but its fine for basic internet usage.

CPU power

Even runs photoshop at an acceptable speed. This isn’t an HD video media machine however, get a proper laptop if thats important.

Summary

This is my first netbook, and it has fulfilled my primary needs for long battery life and good useability for internet surfing on the move. It is also very light to carry around compared to a standard laptop and doesnt weigh you down. Win7 does the job and lets me run firefox, a few productivity applications and will play ripped music and movies without any problems. Keyboard is fantastic.
Rating: 5 / 5